UMass Dartmouth: Baptiste still going strong in 34th men's basketball season with Corsairs

Tuesday

Dec 6, 2016 at 9:46 PMDec 6, 2016 at 10:17 PM

Ed Collins @EdCollinsSCT

Brian Baptiste has two families. The one at home in Dartmouth and the group of players and assistant coaches who have been a part of his 34 seasons as the head coach of the UMass Dartmouth men's basketball team.

Wins over Bridgewater State, Keene State and Worcester State in the Corsairs' last three games left Baptiste with a career record of 602-309. He's the 14th NCAA Division III men's basketball coach to reach the milestone and he's sixth among active coaches in wins and 17th overall.

A basketball player at New Bedford High School and American International College in Springfield, Baptiste has had only six losing seasons, His 1992-93 team reached the Final Four and finished with a 25-6 record and he's guided three teams to the Sweet 16 in 1993-94, 2000-01 and 2008-09.

Not bad for a coach who has never given out an athletic scholarship but has been able to attract top players from all over New England, and the SouthCoast, with a program built on integrity, trust, pride and a tradition of winning.

"i'm blessed that I'm able to do something that I love," Baptiste said. "We've had our share of great players and my players are like family to me. I still keep in touch with a lot of them and it's always great to see them or talk to them on the phone. I still love working with the kids at practice. It's more important to me now than when I was younger."

Onset's Jordan Rezendes, who played on a state-championship team at Wareham, played a year at Dean Junior College and another year at Masschusetts Bay Community College before taking two years off from the game.

When Rezendes decided to go back to school, a lot of coaches were hesitant to add him to their teams, but Baptiste welcomed him with open arms.

"Brian has always given kids on the SouthCoast a chance and going to UMass Dartmouth was one of the best decisions I ever made," said Rezendes, who led all of Division III in scoring with a 27.9 average as a senior with the Corsairs. "He's one of the best coaches in the business. He pushed me every day and made me a better player and a better person. He was more than just a coach to me. He's someone I can call and talk to about anything. He's always been there for me and he's that way with all of his players."

In addition to Rezendes, players from the SouthCoast who blossomed under Baptiste include New Bedford's Marques Houtman, Dartmouth's Tim Gaspar, Frank Barrows and Ryan Bland, Old Rochester's Jason Antonio, Middleboro's Aaron Lee and Fairhaven's Nick Portelance, a 6-foot-8 center who played at GNB Voc-Tech and is a sophomore this season.

One of the best players in program history was 6-5 Steve Haynes, who transferred in from Division I Morgan State for the 1991-92 and 1992-93 seasons and helped lead the Corsairs to the NCAA Division III Final Four as a senior.

"Steve was a wing player at Morgan State, but he played center for us," Baptiste said. "He could step out and shoot three-pointers, he had great passing skills and he could dominate in the paint. We built two really good teams around him and he was the kind of impact player every coach wants to have."

For Haynes, transferring to UMD was an easy decision.

"I was looking to make a change and coach Baptiste recruited me out of Plymouth/Carver High School," Haynes said. "I had a relationship with him, he was doing good things at UMD and I wanted to be a part of that. He was a hard-nosed, non nonsense fiery kind of a coach who always got the most out of his players. He built one of the most consistent programs in the country and that's a testament to the hard work that he and his assistants have put in over the years. He made me a better team player and taught me life lessons that made me a better man."

Baptiste got the ball rolling with a solid first recruiting class that included Kevin Kolek, Fall River's Paul Hart and Tim Dupree.

"They laid the groundwork for our success,' Baptiste said. "They were great players who helped put us on the map. We built some success with them and then we set out to maintain it."

Recruiting has always been a key for Baptiste, who has made a career out of finding players who slipped through the cracks. Kids who were good enough to play at the Division II level, but never found their fit.

"You have to recruit all over the place, because you need the race horses to win the race," Baptiste said. "There are a lot of schools out there recruiting the same kids and you have to try and stand out. I've been blessed to have a lot of hard-working and dedicated assistant coaches over the years. Guys like Len Desautels, who was with me for 22 years. There's a lot of time and effort that goes into recruiting and my assistant coaches have always gotten the job done. Over the years, our winning tradition has kept the kids coming and we've been able to put together some great teams. We've had a couple of valleys, but we've been steady over the years and we've done it with quality kids."

One time, Baptiste had a great player fall into his lap — Val Sender, a 6-9 forward/center from Warsaw, Poland, who defected while on a tour of the U.S. with the Polish National Team.

"He was best friends with a player named Jacek Duda, who was playing for Rick Pitino at Providence College," Baptiste said. "He wanted to stay in the states and Pitino wanted to give him a scholarship. He only would have been able to play one season at PC, so he ended up coming to us and he went on to have a great four-year career. He came in when Kolek, Hart and Dupree were seniors and he kept the momentum going for us after they left."

Sender, who played from 1987-91 is the program's all-time scoring leader with 2, 201 points.

Baptiste has had his share of great individual players, but he stresses teamwork with a common goal of doing what's best for the team.

Stefan Pagios, a point guard from St. Raphael's, and Lee, a lanky 6-5 three-point shooter, were two of the best players Baptiste has coached and they teamed with Haynes to lead the Corsairs to the Final Four as sophomores. They helped UMD reach the Sweet Sixteen as juniors and the NCAA Tournament as seniors.

"They were four-year starters and they had a great run together," Baptiste said. "I've always strive to recruit players like them and mold them into a team concept. I've preached that the team is bigger than all of us and I've had a lot of dedicated kids buy into that over the years. Kids who put their egos behind them and become part of a unit. Kids who do all the little things that never show up in the box score. Kids who put the team first and make the team's success a priority."

"Brian was a great coach to play for and he kept you motivated," said Pagios. "He made us better players and better men. He taught us how to grow up. I still stay in touch with him. He's become my friend over the years. He was a non-nonsense kind of a coach. His teams played tough and a lot of that came from him."

Baptiste was named the coach of the Little East Conference's 25th Anniversary Team, which featured seven of his players — Sender, Haynes, Pagios, Houtman, Kolek, Lee and Hart.

Even now, in his 34th season at UMD, Baptiste can't wait to get to work in the morning and he still loves working with his team at practice and taking them into games in the Little East Conference, where his squads have won 13 regular-season championships and 11 tournament titles.

"I just take things year by year, because I enjoy what I'm doing," Baptiste said. "I've still got a passion for the game and the kids. I feel like I've made a difference in their lives and that's the real reward, not the wins."